Ambre Zuèrkl Vuorhdrévarvtre

Man, is this thing ugly.
In my opinion, this, along with Mutiilation's first two full-lengths, keeps the Black Legions' torch raised in the air with infinite pride. No, I am not kissing ass. This is one of the greatest and most overlooked releases that ever sinked into the black metal underground.
The beginning is simply top-notch. Nortt? Wormphlegm? What are you talking about? This is the purest introduction to the other world. For 3 minutes, a very ugly, wailing riff is played and accompanied by summary feedback from a more high-pitched guitar. This riff is essential, it sounds disgusted and fed up with life (no exaggeration here). Well, after this we have a re-mastered version, I guess, of their track The Dark Promise found on both 1993 and 1994 recordings. Anyway, if you want to check it out, take the review from the demo. After this we are being treated with a brief blasting mayhem (like all the tracks here), with a very simple, but dissonant and disturbing riff. The vocals are fucking hateful. I guess that both Vordb and Aakon screamed on this album, and the result is incredible, just like two lost souls, outshining many of their warbrothers. The song contains a little mid-paced section, with a melody which would have sounded almost rocky but its notes are pervertedly stretched. Then the blasting again and everything stops.
However, this second proper track is no match to the others. For example, the third original track, sounding almost thrashy, and also containing a heavily distorted and dissonant riff, and a chaotic and fast solo.
Another example, the sixth track, where we face a creepy introductive doom melody. But the melody is quickly followed by a technical drum style that would make even a tech death band cry. Vordb takes a fast rhythm, then turns it to hyperspeed, then comes back to a death metal styled double bass and dives again into a ridiculously fast rhythm. The middle breakdown (sandwiched between two solos!) is also worthy, with a vengeful riff in it.
Other really good tracks (and my favourites) are represented by the ninth track, and the longest one, which succeeds in sounding very desolate, without getting too monotonous and ends in a distant sounding acoustic passage, and the last one, with a structure similar to the introduction, meaning a four-note rawer sounding riff accompanied by a sorrowful and almost tender guitar line, with the keyboards topping. The demo also contained a re-mastered version of Twilight Of The Black Holocaust, but nothing better than you could expect on the original track. To some of the listeners track 5 might also sound pretty pointless (I was close to this conclusion), just one and a half minute of blasting (but otherwise some fine riff work!)
The singular and giant flaw that made this album an acquired taste is the production, which can be intolerable even for black metal standards. The guitars are buried, and so are the drums, so you cannot decipher the gems this thing holds unless you are a bat or something like that (I wonder if somebody would like to be my Catwoman, hehe, what a shitty joke). Hellhammer said once that the sole purpose of bad production is hiding the lack of talent, but he was wrong here. That buzzing and humming production needed to be purged in some degree of all the static, but the guys didn't give a shit on our opinions, so... Anyway, the vocals are my favourite in the black metal genre, very venomous and high-pitched. And since I heard the hype about the LLN gettin' doped to make their music, I could make some connections between their altered states and the riffs deformed beyond any human or inhuman recognition.
As a conclusion: get schooled, dudes. I mean get this shit now!